


To The Night

by Rambert



Category: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Genre: Awkward Tension, Canon Compliant, Drunkenness, Emotional Constipation, Gen, Heavy Drinking, Late Night Conversations, Old Friends, One Shot, POV First Person, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-15 00:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rambert/pseuds/Rambert
Summary: The Invisible Man meets The Good Doctor for a drink, or seven.





	To The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Another moldy oldie from the dA crypt that i wrote in 2008 for someone I used to do LXG RPs with. 
> 
> This was supposed to get into slash territory originally but I never finished it, I still kinda like this oneshot though.

I sat at a table in the corner of _The Green Lodge_ tavern, squinting in the near-darkness and trying to make as little contact with the stained furnishings as possible. But the dinginess of the pub didn’t disgust me so much as the people I encountered inside. The barman himself looked as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. Trust Griffin to pick the seediest place in all of London for reconnaissance. No, that wasn’t the right word. ‘Reconnaissance’ implies a mission in progress, and Griffin hadn’t gone on a mission since he defected over a year ago.

I myself hadn’t been too active with the League, and had spent more time on my own work. It was good to get some quality research hours in, but truth be told, I wasn’t exactly on good standing with the League any longer. Everyone was polite about it, and merely talked _around_ me rather than attempting to ignore my presence. They all knew I hadn’t been directly involved in Griffin’s betrayal, but still, I was somewhat accounted as guilty by association, and even I could not deny that the evidence gave room for my blame in the matter. After all… I brought Edward into his own existence and self-consciousness, so even though it was he and not I who helped Griffin in his actions, I was still essentially to blame for him in the first place.

  
But that was all in the past, and I tried to push it to the back of my mind as I noticed the busy waitress heading my way again, clearly intent on extracting an order from me. She’d come by twice already, and I’d insisted on waiting until Griffin showed up. I figured it was pointless to irritate her further, so I just ordered for us both.

  
“What’ll it be?” she asked, rather impatiently.

  
“A glass of port for me, and a scotch double for my friend, please,” I said, gesturing across the table to where Griffin would presumably be sitting soon.

The waitress cocked an eyebrow, but turned on her heel and went to fetch the drinks. I checked the clock—Griffin was nearly forty minutes late.

But just when I was thinking that maybe I’d simply pay and leave and forget this nonsense, a figure in a trench coat and fedora walked in, shoulders slouched forward in a hunch that I could have recognized anywhere. I was suddenly overwhelmed with an urge to call out his name to get his attention but caught myself just in time. It was an irrational idea, and proved totally unnecessary because he spotted me almost immediately, his beatific smile nearly concealed by his high collar.

  
“Dr. Jekyll! It’s been an age and a half,” he said as he strode over to the table, grasping my hand with his gloved one to shake it even before I could stand, and clapping me on the shoulder with his other hand.

Griffin sat down, lighting up a cigarette.

“Y’don’t mind, do you?” he asked, taking a heavy drag and then pulling out the ashtray, setting it on the edge.

  
I sighed, but couldn’t hide my wry smile.

“You might have asked first,” I said, knowing he’d understand that to be a ‘no’.

  
“Yes, well, time is money and all that. Have you ordered drinks?”

  
“As a matter of fact, I have.”

  
“Excellent! Party’s started, then.”

Griffin picked up the cigarette and took another drag, at least being conscious enough to blow the smoke above and away from my face-- though the offensive odor was still quite strong.

“So how’ve you been?” he asked, charming and frank and brash all at once, and it occurred to me that I really _had_ missed him.

“I’ve been well, thank you. The League is barely in contact with me, but I almost prefer that, given what other actions they could have taken.”

  
“Mm. Yes, well, suffice it to say I’ve had enough of lying low—they can’t prove anything; what I did was perfectly legal,” Griffin said in a low voice, flicking ash into the tray.

  
“That doesn’t bar the fact that you betrayed the League, and everything they—_we_—stand for,” I said, and then cursed myself for bringing this up.

This wasn’t how I wanted to spend the evening, rehashing past mistakes.

  
“You make it sound like I was the only one,” Griffin muttered. He was looking at me knowingly through those thick, garish glasses; I knew it.

But I kept my voice calm and level as I replied, “Well, you were most certainly the mastermind. And Edward didn’t exactly clue me in on what was going on until it was far too late for me to do anything about it.”

  
“Good thing, too, or things might have been mucked up worse,” was Griffin’s rebuttal, still in the same prickled tone.

I was spared answering by the waitress bringing the drinks.

“Ah, right,” Griffin said, and downed his in two swallows, plunking it back on the bemused waitress’s tray and saying, “Another, please.”

She nodded and went off. I sipped my wine, and decided to change the subject.

“So, what have you been doing to busy yourself in your time away? Have you gotten another job?”

  
Griffin recognized that I was steering the conversation away from dangerous waters, and I saw something in his face like he was going to point that out, but he sighed, apparently lacking the spite to do so at the present moment.

“No… well, not ‘job’ in the typical sense. I’ve gotten commissions for research and the like, and to make ends meet I’ve started an apprenticeship with an engineer in Surrey. Nice chap, but the work bores me to tears. At least it doesn’t require a ton of hours, so in the evenings I can get back to work on my personal projects.”

The waitress returned with his drink, and he thanked her, telling her to come back soon and winking. She merely rolled her eyes and walked off.

I took another sip of my wine, saying, “Well, that’s good that you’ve found time for your own research again. I’ve personally found that it passes the time quite well, though I don’t seem to be getting very far.”

  
Griffin downed half his drink, only grimacing slightly from the burn of the alcohol.

“Yeah, it passes the time, but running into the same brick walls over and over isn’t exactly satisfying.”

  
“No, it isn’t,” I replied, and that uncomfortable truth we both shared hung between us in the silence for a moment.

Then Griffin started as if he’d suddenly remembered something.

“A toast!” he cried.

“We never had a proper toast. Good thing I still have half this drink left. What shall we toast to, then, eh?” he asked, raising his glass over the table.

  
I thought for a moment. What, indeed. To camaraderie in the midst of betrayal and inner turmoil? To past mistakes, and future hopes? I shook my head. I was getting too cynical for my own good.

Raising my own glass, I smiled and said, “To this night, to conversations long and fulfilling, and to time well-spent with old friends.”

Short and sweet, and to the point.

Griffin almost seemed surprised, but it was with a toothless grin that he clinked his glass to mine, and then downed the rest of his scotch in one go, while I took a couple brave swallows myself, having had almost half the glass by now.

The waitress came by to see if Griffin wanted a refill, and he turned that grin to her and asked, “Why don’t you just bring us a bottle or two, so’s we don’t have to wait?”

\--  
  
I was drunk. I couldn’t believe it. Me, Dr. Henry Jekyll, drunk enough so that I could barely sit up straight in my chair, and I was starting to lean in a most unsightly manner on both elbows on the table to maintain my balance. Griffin had somehow convinced me to drink two more glasses of wine in the past hour. Well, one and a half. I was still working on that half, because it seemed like every time I reached for it, it escaped my grasp.

Feeling like an utter fool, I gave up on the pursuit for the moment and looked up at Griffin, who was slouched back in his chair singing some song to himself and smoking what was most likely his sixth cigarette of the evening. My jacket would reek of smoke, even after a washing, but somehow in this moment I could not bring myself to care.

I watched the muscles in Griffin’s face, accentuated by the greasepaint, work as his mouth formed the words to the song. He caught my gaze and the mouth moved into a smile, not a cunning smirk nor a grin but an actual smile. I wondered if I’d ever seen him really smile before, but his loud voice (volume inhibitor shut off from the alcohol) interrupted my train of thought.

“Say, Henry. You enjoying yourself over there? You haven’t said a word in nearly half an hour. If you’re growing tired of my incessant babbling, then at least tell me, so I can do it louder,” he said, the smile reverting back to a more typical smirk.

  
“What? Oh, yes, I’m enjoying myself thoroughly. Quite. Quite thoroughly, I mean.”

  
“My God Henry, are you _drunk_? Will lightning strike me down now for corrupting the good Doctor Jekyll?”

He even looked around with mock fear, crouching down into the chair. Then he leaned too far in one direction, and it was as if I was watching it in slow motion—Hawley tipped over and sprawled onto the floor, the chair toppling beside him; he was laughing uproariously, attracting the stares of the few patrons of the tavern.

I stood up quickly and instantly regretted it, because I nearly fell also. Steadying myself with a hand on the table, I reached down and grasped for Griffin’s arm to pull him up, though the git was still laughing as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

“You know, Hawley, it appears that you are far drunker than I. Not only can you not support yourself, but you seem to think that it is some sort of comedic act. I can assure you, it is not.”

It was only now that I realized I had pulled Griffin up so that he was standing, and our faces were within inches of each other, so close that I found myself staring into the black void of his mouth.

I released him at once and backed up, suddenly encountering the wall which knocked the wind out of me.

“Careful now, Henry,” Griffin said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Now who’s unable to support themselves?”

  
“I am perfectly fine, thank you very much,” I replied hastily, my voice rising much more than I had intended.

I squirmed out from under his touch, and sat back down with as much dignity as I could muster at this point. Griffin watched me with a calculating expression, and then sat down slowly, finishing up the last dregs of the fifth of scotch he’d ordered and wiping his mouth.

  
“Well. I suppose I should be going, then,” he said at last, when the silence had become almost unbearable.

I started.

“Going? Where?”

  
“Home, of course,” he answered, and this time there was a trace of laughter in his voice.

“I assume you’re going to do the same?”

  
“My flat is five kilometers away from here. There is no way I am getting in a carriage in this state. And I am certainly not walking home,” I insisted.

This pub was one thing, but being drunk in public? I at least had my reputation to uphold. I watched Griffin, and something came over his face that I couldn’t identify, but he looked as if he were mulling things over.

“Well… my place is only a few blocks from this cesspool... what do you say?”

  
I looked at Griffin, digesting his words in my mind. To my besotted brain, this sounded like an excellent plan. Something deep within me said that this was a horrible decision, and that I should just swallow my pride and call a carriage, but—

Before I could stop myself, I found myself saying, “Thank you for the offer. I accept.”

  
“Knew you wouldn’t be cross about it,” Griffin said blithely, and stumbled to his feet, offering me a hand up.

I didn’t take it, using two hands on the table to support me as I stood also, and after leaving some money on the table for the drinks I tottered after him out the door.

We fell into step soon on the side of the street, and didn’t talk much as Griffin led the way to his apartment. The night was chill and breezy, and I shivered as I walked.

_You could still turn back_, the rational part of my mind said, but the part of me that was drunk said to hell with rationale, and I continued walking, following my former colleague into the night... and the unknown.


End file.
